Christian Doctor Behind Facebook's Most Popular Religious Page Divides His Life Between 'Jesus and Drugs'
CP: You mentioned that you live in Texas. Were you born and raised there?
Tabor: No, I was born and raised outside of Huntsville, Alabama, in a very small town called Owens Cross Roads. We were blessed to be dirt-poor while my dad went through seminary, so that's given me a really good perspective. From gardening, right? (Laughs) — In second grade having to pick green beans before I could go to school that morning, so that (built up) a really great work ethic. I was blessed with extremely wonderful parents who are still alive and in good health. My dad's an ordained Independent Baptist minister.
After that, my parents were lobbyist in the state of Alabama against the teaching of Evolution, at least calling for a balanced presentation of Creation. We moved from there when I was 16 to North Carolina just for a better Christian school system. From there, I went to Wake Forest undergrad and then was blessed to get into the John Hopkins University School of Medicine, which gave me a really excellent background in medical research. [Of course] they're focused on excellence in clinical research and innovation. A lot of those techniques I learned in the medical research field, I simply applied to the Jesus Daily page, in terms of, for example, testing different times of day of posting Christ facing this way versus that way, etcetera and on and on. I treated the page as I would a medical clinical trial. I think what we learned from that has really been priceless in terms of keeping our engagement high in order to continue to spread the Gospel.
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CP: Are you married or single? How old are you? Do you have children, siblings…?
Tabor: I'm unmarried, 44, and just waiting for God to send the right one. I'm the pathological middle child (Laughs). I'm a good psychopath, I'd say. My older brother's married with children and my younger brother is married with one child, too. So I've got plenty of nieces and nephews to have fun with in the meantime. I divide my life into two bins: Jesus and drugs. The Jesus part is working through the digital media to spread the Gospel and the drug part is through my nutrition, skin care and drug development work.
CP: I know you grew up in a religious household. Do you have your own personal salvation story?
Tabor: I was blessed to be raised in a Christian household. My mother lead me to the Lord, then I was able to be baptized at a later date by my father. So I had a very clear understanding at a very early age of our sin nature and our need for a (savior). ... We were such rambunctious kids that I learned very early on that I was not going to be able work my way to heaven and that simply was not possible and contradicted Ephesians 2:8 and 9, you know, that salvation is not from good works. I was very blessed to have Christian parents who nurtured us.
CP: You seem to pull from the Scriptures quite readily and with ease. Have you ever trained for ministry at all?
Tabor: A lot of people ask me if I'm a pastor. No, I'm not. My dad is an ordained Baptist pastor. But who knows? Maybe I'll go to seminary one day. Right now, I'm so busy with drug development and with the Jesus Daily page itself… Growing up as a pastor's son, we've been — my mother and dad and (in particular) brothers were making sure we were studying and reading our Bible and doing a lot of Scripture memorization. So it's been very easy to have a very solid foundation for my faith and my own continued spiritual growth. That's where that comes from, just from having great parents who kept us in the Word.
CP: It seems that most of the followers of the Jesus Daily Facebook are based in the United States. Then the second-highest region is the Philippines.
Tabor: It's really interesting with the Philippines and also with India… the Philippines is just really on fire for God. About half the country is on Facebook, and about one out of every six people in the Philippines on Facebook are a fan of Jesus Daily. There's no one in the Philippines that doesn't have a friend that is a member of Jesus Daily. Through the liking, commenting, and sharing we're pushing the Gospel out to essentially all of the Facebook-connected world of the Philippines.
India will be Facebook's number one country by the end of 2015. Facebook will have the most number of people...hundreds of millions of people have rejected the ban. We plan to be there sharing that Jesus is the true God. India has about 33 million gods, so being polytheists, they're very open and welcome to accepting Christ as God. Then, through discipleship, our intent is to educate them that Christ claimed to be the only true way to heaven. Both the Philippines and Indians are wonderful people, wonderful cultures. It's just really refreshing to work with them in their countries even though it's digital and I'm not physically there.
It's been a real blessing to learn so much about cultures everywhere, on every continent. It's amazing to see someone in the Philippines requesting prayer for cancer, and then see someone from Nigeria replying to say, "Hey, I'm praying for you." It gives you a sense of how the Body of Christ can be connected globally in a way that's never before been possible. We get direct feedback from people say in a small town near Cape Town in South Africa: "Hey, I thought I was the only Christian in my city. But when I joined Jesus Daily, I found out that 20 of my friends are already members."
So it's helping people in the U.S. and abroad recognize they're Christians. The workplace, for example, people will sit side-by-side in a cubicle for 20 years and they'll [never] know that each other are Christians. They get connected on Jesus Daily...Facebook has this wonderful feature, they'll show you what other friends are connected on that page. I believe it's opening up dialogues among local Christians and hopefully strengthening their faith and their ability to go out and spread the Gospel together or go to church with each other, (and) to have Bible studies with each other as well. I think connecting that body of believers and not making it where it's a bad thing to invite someone to attend church at your workplace for risk of offending them when you know that they're all ready a member of the Jesus Daily page. I think some of those barriers are removed.
CP: Do you have a personal message at all to the millions who follow the page?
Tabor: I would really encourage people to be bold for Christ. So often...when I first started the page, it was almost embarrassing to share it in front of my intellectual colleagues. But over time, the more I have stood up for Christ and the more I have spread the Gospel, I have had the most amazing amount of blessings the past five and a half years, and connections come to me more than I could have ever imagined or planned. Yet, at the same time, as is promised in the Scriptures, also the most struggles come. Because when you're living for Christ, we're not promised a life of health and wealth, right? We're promised that we will be attacked. But through that, you can view through those trials and tribulations, that it's God's direct calling on your life to bring you closer to Him. And when you combine those blessings with the tribulations that bring you closer to Jesus, it's a wonderful life.
